Queer Places:
Keizersgracht 518, 1017 EK Amsterdam, Netherlands
Niek
Engelschmanbrug, Keizersgracht, 1016 GW Amsterdam, Netherlands
Nico (Niek) Engelschman (pseudonym Bob Angelo, November 12, 1913 – October 27, 1988) was a Dutch actor, gay activist and Dutch resistance fighter during World War II.
Nico Engelschman and Jaap van
Leeuwen were active in several resistance groups. Together with his
brother Engelschman ended up in the opposition. A Resistance activist and Marxist, homosexual Jew
Niek Engelschman in 1940 co-founded a short-lived magazine for homosexual men
and women, Levensrecht (Right to Live). In 1946 the editors revived it, but it
was suppressed by the police. Shortly thereafter they started another
magazine, Vriendschap (Friendship). It was around this publication that a
group of concerned men and women gathered to form the most significant group
in the Dutch movement for homosexual rights, COC (Cultuur en Ontspannings
Centrum: the Centre for Culture and Recreation).
Engelschman was born in Amsterdam, the son of Nathan Engelschman and Hendrika van der Star, the eldest of five sons. He spent his primary school years in Amersfoort after which the family returned to Amsterdam. He came from a "mixed" marriage; his father came from a Jewish family of merchants and his mother came from a Lutheran middle-class environment. Both were neither religiously nor politically engaged. Due to the crisis years,
Engelschman was unable to attend a secondary school and at the age of thirteen he started working as the youngest servant at a
Jewish import company that organized freight transports to and from the former Dutch East Indies. Here he worked from 1926 to 1942.
Engelschman first became a member of the union for office workers "Mercury". He read works by Karl Marx and Lev Trotsky and in 1927 joined the Workers Youth Central (AJC)
and the Social Democratic Workers Party (SDAP). Later, in 1935, he would join the more radical communist movement of the Leninist Youth Guard (LJG). Here he became secretary of the national board and also editor of a number of magazines, Arbeidersjeugd, De Jonge Leninist and De Rood Gardist. He participated in actions and demonstrations against youth unemployment and the policies of the Conservative governments Colijn and in 1936 he wrote the booklet "Attack on the 160,000" - which struck the number of youth unemployed. He also wrote the one-act "Fascist Terror" in that year for performance at the LJG theatre club. The play was about the fascist regimes and their misdeeds in Europe. Through acting within the LJG he began to get actor ambitions.
Engelschman had fallen in love with another boy in the youth movement, but it was only after the age of 24 that it became completely clear to him that he was gay. He began to delve into the subject and read books on homosexuality. He came into contact with
J.A. Schorer who fought against the legal ban on homosexual acts through his Dutch Scientific Humanitarian Committee (N.W.H.K.). However, he did not agree with the tactics of the somewhat elitist Schorer. Engelschman was mainly about the social disadvantage. He began to participate in the emancipation of homosexuals and to stop his other social activities. Henk Sneevliet, who himself had two gay sons, gave him permission to leave LJG. In 1939 Engelschman, together with Jaap van Leeuwen and
Han Diekmann, started a magazine for homosexuals, 'Levensrecht', after the Swiss example, the first issue of which was published in March 1940.
Engelschman wrote under the pseudonym "Bob Angelo" so as not to get social problems.
However, the German invasion put an end to Levenrecht after the third issue had appeared .
From January 1941 the illegal magazine "De Vonk" was published at
Engelschman's parents' home. The editors later met in Engelschman's house in 1943, the basement of Keizersgracht 518 in Amsterdam. During the war, Engelschman sat at various addresses to avoid arrest, both at home with his mother and with friends. In addition to the production and distribution of magazines, Engelschman and his brother also helped Jewish friends and acquaintances find safe houses.
In 1942 Engelschman enrolled at the Toneelschool in Amsterdam. Although he was not formally Jewish with only a Jewish father, the training did not dare to take him but he was allowed to walk informally for some time. He then took acting lessons with Louis van Gasteren and Louis Saalborn. He provided for his livelihood during the last two years of the war by starring illegally in his home. After the liberation he joined the Tooneelgroep 5 May 1945 which consisted of actors who had not in principle joined the Kultuurkamer. He also played roles at the Zuid-Nederlandsch Tooneel.
Engelschman decided in 1946 to continue the emancipation struggle for homosexuals. The magazine Levensrecht made a relaunch in September of that year, and from the readership the Shakespeare club was created, the first Dutch association of and for gays. On December 7, 1946, the first meeting of the association was organized, which was later called C.O.C.: Culture and Relaxation Center (the name was later changed to: Dutch Association for the Integration of Homosexuality COC, or NVIH COC for short). The early years were difficult because the government was not in favour of the movement and the vice police were investigating and even raids on members and the society.
Engelschman saw C.O.C. as a social emancipation movement.
He relied on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights drawn up by the United Nations in 1948. Homosexuals should be able to be full, equal and respected citizens in public. In every New Year's address he gave, Engelschman spoke of equality and aligned discrimination based on sexual orientation with discrimination based on origin, gender or race. He called for equalization of the law in all kinds of areas for homosexuals, the removal of discriminatory laws, the elimination of prejudice. He also advocated scientific research on homosexuality. Together with Jaap van Leeuwen, he introduced the word 'homophilie' in 1949, soon written as 'homophilia'.[1]
For nineteen years Engelschman was the face of the C.O.C., under his pseudonym Bob Angelo. He was director of the agency, editor of the magazine and president of the association. When he stepped down in 1962, he was appointed honorary president.
In addition to his work for the C.O.C., Engelschman continued to play and direct. His last directing work was for the Amsterdam amateur stage group De Jonge Leidsche, which he also founded, renamed Angelo after his death in 1988 in his honour, after his alias Bob Angelo. In the 1950s and 1960s he directed many plays for the C.O.C. and the NVSH. Nico Engelschman also remained active in the theatre as a supporting actor and later also on television and in feature films. In 1959 he was part of the theatre company "Studio" which, under the direction of Kees van Iersel, brought modern pieces to the stage. On television he starred in the youth series Floris of the NOS. He also had film roles in "Geen Paniek" (1973), "Keetje Tippel" (1975) and "Het Verleden" (1982) and was still regularly seen in supporting roles in various television series.
Engelschman had several long-term relationships, initially with Nol Biesterveld, then with Hans Flemming and since 1972 he lived together with the nurse Jan Onrust who he had met in the COC society De Schakel. They would remain together until Engelschman's death in 1988.
As a posthumous tribute, the COC established the Bob Angelo Medal in 1991, named after
Engelschman's pseudonym. This badge has since been awarded every year to people or organizations that have contributed to gay emancipation.
Also in 1991, in the Emancipation district in the Nijmegen district of Goffert, an avenue was named after him, in Leiden a street and in Amsterdam bridge no. 106 over the Keizersgracht, which leads from the center to the Homomonument, was named Niek Engelschmanbrug.
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